


North-Northwest

by Gileonnen



Category: Echo Bazaar, Rosencrantz & Guildenstern are Dead - Stoppard
Genre: Cartographic Mishaps, Chiropteromancy, Clinging Muck, Epithets, Gen, Northward Yearning, We Have Been Here Before
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-12-24
Updated: 2011-12-24
Packaged: 2017-10-28 01:09:47
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 431
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/302074
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Gileonnen/pseuds/Gileonnen
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The Melancholy Prince is mad north-northwest, but Rosencrantz and Guildenstern would take any direction out of Bugsby's Marshes.</p>
            </blockquote>





	North-Northwest

**Author's Note:**

  * For [mxingno](https://archiveofourown.org/users/mxingno/gifts).



The two of them are ankle-deep in muck and slowly sinking, and really, they ought to strike off in _any_ direction, but that's not the way of things, in the Neath. If you strike off in any direction, it's liable to be a different direction than the one you meant, and you're as likely to find yourself in Bugsby's Marshes as you are to find yourself in the university quadrangle.

This is, after all, why the two of them are _currently_ in Bugsby's Marshes and _not_ in the university quadrangle, despite Rosencrantz's philosophical musings about coin tosses and even chances and the intentionality of peregrinations.

The Melancholy Prince had expected them for tea, but that's looking increasingly unlikely.

They ought to pull their feet out of the sucking mud and follow that fellow in the bedsheet over the muck, but they've already shot three carnivorous toadstools today, and their direction must be the _right_ direction if they want to leave the marshes with any bullets left to spare. Thus, the two of them are peering over their contraband map while Rosencrantz holds a phosphorescent scarab aloft to illuminate it.

They are also yelling at one another, but this goes almost without saying.

"If you were standing on the southern bank of the river," Rosencrantz explains, "Which we are, then the direction that the river is flowing _from_ is the Hellward direction, which is to say the westward direction, which is to say the opposite of the direction of the direction the river is flowing _to_ , or the east--" He points, and Guildenstern fights down the urge to seize his finger and bite it off.

"That's not what I'm trying to discern!" snarls Guildenstern. His blood's up, and his pulse is fluttering like a frighted moth in his throat. If he dared to release his pent-up breath, perhaps it would fly free, tiny wings shimmering with frost.

Rosencrantz heaves an aggrieved sigh, and in the distance, a marsh wolf howls. "Well, what are you trying to do?"

Raking a hand through his hair so that he won't wring Rosencrantz's neck, Guildenstern replies as levelly as he can, "I am _trying_ to determine the direction of the bats."

"There _aren't any bats_ \--"

As he speaks, though, the marsh erupts in a shuddering susurrus of wings; the bats swirl around them, all of them shrieking, and Guildenstern has unshouldered his ancient hunting rifle before he has a chance to think.

The bats rise to the moonish-lit roof of the cavern in a swarm. Not even Rosencrantz can deny that the bats are heading North.


End file.
